At last, they've found it! Found what? You know. It. The elixir. Well, not the elixir. An elixir, at any rate.

That is to say, it's not the elixir of life. But it is the elixir of energy and may have implications for weight loss, diabetes, epilepsy and Alzheimer's Wotsname. If you've an allegedly about your person, feel free to spray it about what follows.

The elixir, known definitively as 'The Drink', has been developed by Kieran Clarke. He's professor of physiological biochemistry at Oxford University, so he must be right brainy.

His research was carried out at the behest of the US Army, which strikes me as odd. What do they want with an elixir? Making soldiers indestructible perhaps.

The Drink doesn't quite manage that, but when they gave it to a bunch of international rowing champions, one of them beat a world record.

The key is ketones. Obviously, these are little bundles of power that our bodies make when we raid our fat stores for energy in the absence of carbs.

If you've dabbled with the Atkins diet, you'll have set your ketones off. But Atkins, with its lack of tatties, isn't for everyone and has been criticised for causing constipation and kidney problems. With The Drink, you won't need to go on such diets. Just open your gub and pour it down. Ketones cop a powerful punch on your brain and muscles, and the big news about The Drink is that they're manufactured in labs, so your body doesn't have to bother its butt.

Way to go! Anything that burns fat while allowing you to remain seated gets my vote. But what about the other stuff that it might help with? And I say "might" because this is a health story that's made newspaper headlines, so it probably isn't true.

Well, the drop in blood sugar could be good for diabetics, who'll be familiar with ketones, mainly through warnings that high levels can be dangerous. However, that's only in cases where blood sugar levels are exceptionally high and not controlled with drugs, which would be rare.

So it says here. Like everything else, it isn't my area of expertise, so treat with caution. Children with epilepsy could also benefit, as they may already do from high-fat ketogenic diets. However, there could be less need for the high-fat grub - sorry, kids - and more room for lovely vegetables. Hmm, yummy!

And, obliviously, anything that boosts the brainlobes will be good for Alzheimer's. Maybe. The usual suspects are warning that The Drink - should it ever become available to the lieges (so far it's only been given to rats and rowers, no offence) - shouldn't be an excuse to be lazy.

Somebody else said you should also combine it with the ghastly Mediterranean diet, with its awful tomatoes. Methinks we'll give that advice the rubber ear.

And, hey, it turns out there is a reason the US Army was interested. It had found that troops in the field often didn't take enough rations, having filled their rucksacks with ammo rather than nosh.

This caused their blood sugar to drop, leading them to become confused and sometimes shoot their own side. The US Army hopes The Drink might stop that sort of thing.

Hey, I'll drink to that. Anything that stops the Yanks shooting their own side must be truly magical.